The Girl Next Door
by animeditto
Summary: It was the summer between second and third year of college. Traditionally it was spent up at the Queen's cottage. The only constant in Oliver's life was the girl in the neighboring cabin, the girl next door. He'd be damned by the end of summer if he didn't consider it the best. AU Olicity.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Arrival

At long last it was summer has arrived that meant the lake front cottage. It was one of Oliver's favorite places, a guilty pleasure. It was one of few places he could escape the press, superficial jerks and plastic sluts. The few people he liked to spend time with and could tolerate for long periods of time had scattered in the past couple of years. The only one left was the girl that spent her summer in the neighboring cottage. She was probably the only constant. This was the summer after his second year of college and before his third. He'd be damned by the end of it if he didn't consider it the best.

The ride up form Sterling City was a tradition. The whole family would set aside a minimum of the first week after both his and Thea's classes ended. It was inevitable that meetings and plans would draw their attention away for the lake. Oliver tried his hardest to stay within the limits of the lake side town. During the course of the summer there was always a Queen staying at the lake.

The ride was four hours without stops; the fasted time they'd ever reached it was just under five. The route changed each time it was driven. Construction, detours and traffic always interfered with the most logical route. The one thing that was guaranteed was that was new scenery that passed by. This trip wasn't any different. The radio blared, each song was a different being a different genre, not lasting long enough before someone changed it, the top competitors being Oliver and Thea.

This trips ride took five and a half hours. Their cottage was a three story; with the square footage it was easily considered a semi-mansion. The other cabins were maybe half the size of theirs if not smaller. The lake housed roughly 20 cottages directly on its shores. It was quiet up here, peaceful.

The car pulled up to the cottage. They had the house stocked before their arrival so food and other necessities weren't to be concerned once they arrived. The car doors flung open, like always Thea would race Oliver to the door, a standing tradition since she was able to hobble. It didn't take much for him to beat her. He was physically much stronger than her thanks to his training he received from John Diggle the Queen's bodyguard and his former instructor.

He swung the door open as he entered. It smelt slightly musty form being closed up for over half a year. He knew within a couple days it would circulate and redeem its previous airy aroma. Oliver lowered himself onto the nearest surface which happened to be an end table. He waited as the rest of his family filed in. Moira, his mother, excused herself to the kitchen to prepare dinner before it got any later. Not long after his father's cell phone ring tone sounded. He pressed the talk button quickly and mumbled something along the lines of _Robert Queen speaking _before he left towards a small office.

"And then there were two." Thea muttered as she walked towards her older brother.

For a thirteen year old she was surprisingly cunning. Each time he returned home during breaks she would manage to sucker him into doing some humiliating task.

"So it appears."

The two stood in silence for a moment not knowing what was to follow. "You wanna go check out the docks? Maybe drag the floating dock to the deep water before it gets to dark?" Thea offered not sure if it was a liable task to take up their time.

Oliver thought it over briefly before nodding and striding to the back door in the kitchen. He heard Thea shout to their mother that they were headed to the docks while he snatched a set of keys for the boat house knowing they'd pull the dock to the middle of the water.

The lake was as it always was a tranquil paradise. To either side he could see people sitting on docks or swimming in the water under them. No one was obnoxiously loud or over bearing. All of the properties were kept neat and tidy. Of all the lakes he's been to with friends this one was by far the overall best. He knew just about everyone on the lake. Each year at the end of summer the Queens would throw a barbeque for all the neighbors and the occasional businessmen.

He and Thea step on to the docks that led 20 feet into the water and sprawled along the bank. Beside it was the floating dock that was tied to the side of the boathouse. They walked across the dock then jumped onto the floating dock. Oliver offered Thea help only for her to refuse. They continued into the boat house after it was unlocked and proceeded to one of the speed boat kept in there. Oliver ignited the engine and steered the boat out of its shelter. He parked in just in front of the dock and handed Thea the steering wheel while he attached the rope. Not long after the platform was placed about 120 feet from the shore.

They toured around the lake slowly greeting the odd few people they saw. By the time they returned and tied the speed boat to a post. The siblings ventured back through the kitchen door to have their mother tell them to set the table.

The Queen family ate salmon smothered in lemon. They joked and chatted, catching up after a couple months. After that they all dispersed. Thea to her room to Skype some of her school friends. His mother and father went to the den to have a movie night. He on the other hand didn't know what to do. He contemplated taking the patio furniture but decided against it knowing his mother would want them moved from where he put them. He thought of going swimming but again chosen not to and opted to just go to his room and see what was in there.

Upon arrival he surveyed the room. There was a TV with a Blu-ray and various gaming consoles, a laptop, a few boxes of old comic books from when he was a kid, clothes and a book shelf that was mostly for show. He sighed as he ventured to the window beside the DVD and games shelving unit. He glanced hoping to see something that he knew wouldn't be there.

His eyes swooped over the neighboring cottage. He'd been in it a hundred times and knew it as well as he knew his own. The cottage was a medium coloured wood that gave it a welcoming look. He knew the main residence that occupied most of his time won't be there unit tomorrow at the earliest. She had to travel farther than he did. She had chosen a collage on the other side of the country. She'd likely have to drive on her own like normal. It was normally just her in the cottage consistently with a random assortment of relatives that would come to the lake to enjoy the summer. Part of it was because her father owned a few electronic repair shops and stores that took up most of his time. Her mother had passed away when she was young do to cancer that had spread too quickly for the treatments to keep up with.

He doubted he would she her until two maybe three days. She'd have to stop to sleep or risk falling asleep at the wheel. He sighed a little disappointed that their reunion would be postponed even longer. They didn't speak all that much during the rest of the year making the summer that much more valuable. The blond moved away from the window and turned on the TV and his PlayStation. He popped in one of the game disks and grabbed one of the controls. He played for hours. When he looked up at the clock he knew he had to go to bed. Thanks to collage he was used to going to bed at ridiculously late hours and functioning the next day with four hours of sleep.

Oliver grabbed a pair of pajama bottoms and a towel dawning towards the bathroom. After a quick shower he dressed and climbed into bed. He had been laying there for half an hour when he saw light gleam through his window momentarily blinding him. He jumped out of the bed, swiftly moving to the window. Sure enough it was the familiar red vehicle (_**AN: anyone know the type she drives?**_). He couldn't help the smile that welled up within him. And just like that he was out the door heading to the neighboring cottage.

AN: ok so I wanted to do a 'girl next door' type AU with Oliver and Felicity. I changed a few things like the age gap between Oliver and Thea, normally ten years but in this seven. I plan to have her relatively involved and it didn't seem right if she was just ten thus she is thirteen. Parents won't be in it too much. I hope you enjoy!


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Dust

He snuck through the silent cottage ensuring that he didn't wake anyone as he crept to the neighboring cottage. He slipped on a pair of flip-flops and as quietly as he could he opened and closed the door in a swift movement. He then ran across the lawn, hoping over the short fence the divided the two yards. He grinned once again at the sight that bestowed him.

Felicity Smoak, a blonde (former brunette) stood leaning against her car in all her glory. Her hair was dragged back into a now slacked part frizzy part curled ponytail. Her glasses rest at the tip of her nose. Her makeup was mostly smudged and worn. The heavy bags that dragged down her face showed how truly tired she was. He watched as she sluggishly dragged herself around the back of the Mini Cooper (_**AN: thanks jimi18,**_ _**Lazydreamer99 , Jean Deere!**_) she opened the double doors reached in the trunk to grab her suitcase and duffle bag.

This is when Oliver made his presence known. The blonde placed the bags on the ground to close the car's trunk. She turned with the intensions to retrieve her bags. She dropped her keys in shock. There a very shirtless Oliver with a piece of luggage in each hand.

"Jeez Oliver, you scared me, don't you know not to sneak up on people." She sighed leaning down to pick up her keys. "What are you even doing up? It's almost five AM. I mean, not that you can't be up this late, you aren't a child that needs to be told what to do. Or you could have just woken up. Wait did I wake you up? I could have sworn I put the low beams on as I pulled down the street-"

Oliver couldn't take it any longer. He let out a hearty chuckle. The computer geek's rambling is one of the things he missed the most about her. It was heartwarming to hear after a crappy year like this one turned out to be. Plus it was a sign that told him it truly summer.

He smirked at her leading the way to the cottages entrance. "I could be asking you the same."

She sighed following along behind him. "I don't blame you. I meant to stop at an inn at 11 but all the decent ones were filled, all that was left were the dingy ones that house 4 inch cockroaches and have questionable characters. After a while I gave up and just drove here."

Felicity turned the key. The locking mechanisms moved after months of being up touched. She pushed all her weight on the door hoping that for one year it wouldn't stiffen to the point that it could barely be opened. After one last big push it opened causing her to stumble in following the momentum.

The place was musty, dusty and in desperate need of cleaning. It was in her greater interest to clean the cabin spotless the moment she walked in. Now all she wanted to do was crawl into bed and wake up ten hours from now. The woman coughed trying to clear the dust that was trying to settle in her lungs.

"You can put the bags there, I think I'm just heading going to crawl into bed." She pushed herself away from the entrance. "Lock the door as you leave." She turned around on the first step. "One more thing, if you don't see movement to show I'm awake by noon tomorrow come and wake me up."

She didn't get far of course. Oliver held onto her wrist tugging her back to the entrance. "If the bedrooms are half as bad as this is then sleeping in it will make you sick, come on." He dragged her few the entrance grabbing the suitcase along the way. Having known her for most of his life he knew the duffle bag contained nothing but electronics and DVDs.

Felicity opened her mouth to argue but instant closed it and gave into his pull, she was much too tired to bother with arguing a losing battle. She allowed him to drag her back to the fence where they always he stepped over with ease. He turned to her shifting his hand around Felicity's to help her over the fence. He led the rest of the way to the house like that.

Oliver gestured for her to remain silent as they entered the residence he dragged her through the house to his room. "Stay here, I'm going to check which room has fresh blankets and sheets." He left the room after placing the suitcase on the floor. As quietly as he could he checked all the guest rooms, none of which were equipped with the necessary things to sleep there. He knew the balk of the extra linens and blankets were kept in a closet right next to the master bedroom. It was far too risky. Then he remembered that in each of the main bedrooms that were used by the Queens had extra bed sets in their closets.

He raced through the halls back to the place where he started. He gently and quietly pushed the door inward enough to sneak his body in. The sight that met him mean him smile. Felicity laid on his bed curled in a ball. Her hair was sprawled across the blankets. Her glasses were pushed to the tip of her nose on the verge of falling off. In this moment he had to stand back and appreciate the pure, unacknowledged beauty of the blonde. He could tell by the way she carried herself she wasn't told enough or even knew how truly remarkable she was. He had to sit back and watch for a moment before walking to her side.

He gently removed her glasses and placed them on the bedside table. Oliver then shuffled her around so he was able to slide her under the covers and place her in a more comfortable position. Once her needs were sought after and completed he debated with himself if he should crawl into bed with her or just crash on the couch. It wasn't odd for them. They had fallen asleep in his bed together so many times in the past years it wasn't odd or foreign to them. The only thing didn't from those times to this was the situation that led to this. The times previous were mostly due to late night movie marathons or pranking montages. Today was much different because of that he gave up his bed to her and flopped down on the couch the couch that sat opposite the TV.

_The things I do for that girl… _

Thea woke up at ten AM the next morning. She sluggishly pulled herself out of bed and to the shower. She was soon dressed and bored out of her mind. She had ventured to the kitchen to find a note saying her parents had gone out to pick up a few things. She then prepared herself a bowl of cereal, not knowing how to prepare much else.

She sighed; it was only her and Oliver. She was sure she could convince him to go swimming or maybe pull out the Jet Skis. She had decided. She half skipped half jugged to her older brother's room. She didn't bother with knocking and just shoved the door open. She wasn't expecting to see Felicity curled up in her brother's bed.

She couldn't say it was a bad sight; she was rather fond of their neighbor. Even though she was several years younger than the blonde, she always set aside time to spend with her. Having grown up with the woman she often found herself seeing her as an older sister. In many ways she admired the glasses wearing girl. Whenever she needed help with anything she knew she could count on Felicity. So what came next shouldn't have come as a surprise.

Thea ran as quickly as she could and jumped onto the bed. The motion sent Felicity straight up worried of what just happened. The brunette watched her search for what was wrong until her eyes landed on her. "Is that you Thea? You're turning into your brother the two of you shouldn't surprise unaware people. Can you pass me my glasses; I don't know where they are."

Thea giggled as she reached over her and handed her the glasses. By this point Oliver had made his way over to stand beside the bed. "So why are you in Oliver's room?" she croaked.

"It was too dirty over there so Oliver would let stay me there." She adjusted her glasses on her nose. "That came out wrong. My cottage is super dusty he was afraid I would get sick. Not that I would, I guess I could have stayed just one night there and have been fine but I was too tired to bother arguing, not that I couldn't, I did just drive-"

"Breathe Felicity." Oliver coaxed.

She took a deep breath hoping her face wasn't as red as it felt. "Ugh, it's going to be a long day."

AN: wow, the amount of feedback for the first chapter was amazing, I didn't think it's would do so well. One thing I must warn you is consistence with updates is known existent. If you don't see a post in a week without a good reason like I'm dead or morning the loss of fictional characters or I broke every bone in my hands of course. Either way I hope you enjoy! Thanx for all the reviews ;)


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Voyage

Oliver, Thea and Felicity sat in an old rickety row boat. The boat was in a quiet peek of the lake that had become a favorite fishing spot. Each of them either hold a fishing pole or had one leaning against the side of the boat.

It had been almost a week since they had all arrived. Both houses were now up and running to the fullest potential. The three of them had spent a large portion of their time with each other trying to catch up that was the main purpose of their voyage.

"How'd you get drunk enough to manage steal a police cruiser?" the blonde asked as she adjusted her line. Thea glanced over at her brother on the opposite side of the boat awaiting an answer that was sure to be amusing.

He laughed awkwardly and rubbed the back if his head. "I wasn't drunk." He said.

Thea snorted back laughter. "Why'd you do it then?" she continued to ask.

"There was this chick." The young sibling was already trying to suppress her laughing fits. Oliver brought a hand to his face and slowly ran his hand through her hair. "Me and my buddy-"

"My buddy and I." The tech genius corrected.

He rolled his eyes. "_My buddy and I _made a bet on who ever got the car got the girl. I got the car and he got the chick 'cause I was spending the night in the station."

The young brunette rocked onto her back having forgotten that she was trying to suppress her laughter, causing the boat to rock in the water. Felicity chuckled at the story; she knew it would be a good ice break for their voyage. They continued swapping wild stories of the past year, each of them centered on different experiences for parties to crazy professors they covered them all. Every time a fish neared one of the hooks and boat would erupt in laughter shaking, scaring away the river dwelling creatures. They let it all out and enjoyed each other's company. It didn't take long for the sun to lower in the sky signifying that it was time to head back to the docks and prepare for dinner.

"Can you pass me the oar behind you?" Oliver sounded bring a close to the 'fishing trip'.

The blonde nodded and began to awkwardly twist around to grab oar. She leaned beside Thea resting her hand on the edge of the boat to support herself. She grasped the hand and pushed herself upright. Just then a large motor boat passed by going at ridiculous speeds so that the people hanging off the back on tubes would fall out. This rattled the boat causing Felicity to lose her balance and drop the oar into the lake.

She cursed under her breath as she leaned out over the side to grab it better it sunk into the vegetation at the bottom of the lake. Another hand reached out with hers in a frugal attempt to try and retrieve it. This, of course, caused the boat to rock dangerously to the one side at the momentum. Their hands were mere inches away from their goal. This ushered Thea to lean nearly her entire body over the side. This caused Oliver to lung forward to haul his sister back into the boat, following the chain of events. And that all it took to flip the boat over throwing everyone and its contents over into a rather deep and cold place in the river. A couple seconds everyone bobbed up to the surface.

They coughed up water and gasped for air, once they had all regained their bearings when they started to survey the damage.

Oliver swam to Thea and brought her to the over turned boat so that she could rest there. He swam around the boat to find Felicity had done the same thing on her own. He grabbed her arm and together they swam to the other to meet with Thea. After a few minutes of debating they came up with the best method to flip the boat back upright. They swam under it and pushed it up and had it roll over so it was correctly stationed.

They spent a few minutes of awkward maneuvers they managed to get into the row boat. They sat slouched against the boat and each other while they tried to figure out what came next.

Felicity ran her hand through her supping water hair, pushing it out of her face. "Well, we lost everything that was in the boat so now we have no oars, no fishing gear or anything else. Any suggestions on how we get back? We traveled a good few miles from the docks, I'm not sure about you guys but I know I can't swim that far."

The younger girl sighed and nodded in agreement and looked to her brother to see if he had any ideas.

He let out a sigh. "I could swim to shore," he gestured to the nearest piece of land on the side of the lake that their cottages were. "I'll run back to the house and get the motor boat and some rope; we can tug it back then."

That seemed to be the best idea they could come up with and decided upon it after a few more minutes of deliberation. And like that Oliver dived into the water and swam back leaving the two girls to drift in the water's currents.

They sat soaked in their seats, quietly waiting for Oliver to come, both knew it would be a good 45 minutes until they saw him again.

The brunette sighed frustrated at the silence. "Any big plan this summer?" she asked to fill the void boredom left.

Felicity removed her glasses and tried to dry them the best she could, she gave up and put them in the front pocket of her shirt. "Nothing big, just this one thing with my college roommate."

Thea smiled. "Tell me about it."

Oliver swam all the way to the shore. Once he reached it he tore of his shirt and rung it out as best as he could it didn't take long for him to give up and toss it over his shoulder. After that he took off in a steady pace. He knew the area around the lake just as well as he knew Starling City. He ran back taking all the short cuts that he's found over the years.

The only difficulties he ran into were fallen trees and over minor obstacles but that was expects. Even with that he made it back in record timing. His parents gave them odd looks as he came brawling through the house. He changed into dry clothes and grabbed a few blankets and towel. Moira stopped her son as he was about the exit. "Weren't you on the boat with the girls?"

"Yeah, the boat flipped over, we lost the oars and everything, I came back to get the motor boat to tow it back." He explained as quickly as he could before continuing on with his mission. He hurried it the boathouse and ready the closest one the door (which had been open from the row boat). He tossed the blankets and towels on the seat next to his and drove off in the way he had come. After a few minutes the small row boat came into view. He let out a sigh of relief seeing that both girls were still in it and okay. He slowed the pace as he approached them.

"Long time no see, Ollie." Thea called over. Oliver stood up and walked to the side of the boat that was next to the row boat. He extended his hand the Thea and pulled her on board. He then tossed the one end of the rope the Felicity in the smaller boat. She then tied it to the front making sure it was nice and secure. She then walked over to Oliver who offered her a hand as well. She grabbed it and allowed him to help her on.

Once everything was ready they settled into the seats. The girls dried off the best they could with the towels then wrapped themselves in the blankets.

It's safe to say there was no more complications that night.

AN: it has been awhile, sorry! I don't even have a good reason really. With the new season I will likely be writing more but can't guarantee frequency. School is killing me. I've worked out all the major chapter topics I want to cover (some will cover more than one chap). So unless I come up with more it will probably be 10 – 12 chaps once completed hope u enjoy!


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